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Title: The Hero and the Crown
ISBN: 0441013058
Author:
Robin McKinley
Publicate Date: 2007-01-02
Publish: 2007-01-02
List Price: $14.00
Average Customer Rating: 4.5
Format: Paperback
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Amazon Lowest New Price: $4.24
Amazon Lowest Used Price: $3.52
Amazon Merchant Price: $11.20
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1: Could have been much, much better
O.K. This is not going to be a popular review, I'm sure. However, in the spirit of honest reviewing . . .
I have been a fantasy genre enthusiast for years, enjoying Tolkien, Robin Hobb, Robert Jordan, and even M. Weiss and R.A. Salvatore. I've heard good things about the author, sat down, and looked forward to what I thought would be a savory short novel.
I was unpleasently surprised. This is a fantasy book for children. That is fine and was within my expectations. However, what was not in my expectations was the sporadic prose, sentence structure, and voice of the main character. The author sets a tone well and has a firm grip on a good story. That is true and is why this review has three stars to it.
But, to be honest, it seems like a very, VERY good author got strangled by her own doing. Sometimes very clever and adult humor pokes through a chopped-short plot. Glorious imagination gets dampened by terse sentence struchture and strangely abbreviated paragraph lengths. I don't expect a young adult novel to have the descriptive color of an 800 page adult fantasy, but it seems like the author gripped the plot and audience (young) in mind so hard she strangled her own greatest gifts: humor, charactorization, and epic story (rather than a condensed, stilted telling of a great story).
Yes, you feel for the Aerin, the slighted and coming of age daughter. But her difficult childhood feels forced and heavy-handed by the time it's done and when the plot begins to move, the sweep of the story becomes very clipped, with important plot points flying jiltingly past in single paragraphs each. If the author would allow herself 70 more pages of book and tried not to belabor the "poor teenage victim" so much at the beginning, the novel would sing.
As it is, the novel contents itself with a cramped, underdeveloped beauty.
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2: Wonderful Fantasy
After reading The Blue Sword (which I loved), I couldn't wait to read The Hero and the Crown. I enjoyed this book, too. It was interesting that the heroine, Aerin, is practically a patron saint in Harry's time (in The Blue Sword), but looked down upon and ridiculed at the start of this story. I've been waiting for Robin McKinley to write another book about Damar ever since this book came out. In this one, she seems to suggest another sequel because Aerin sees another girl of the future besides Harry. I hope she writes another Damar novel soon! Her other books that I've read are very good, too.
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3: Wonderful fantasy
I first read this book in the 8th grade, when a sympathetic teacher gave me a copy. Since then, this has continued to be one of my "comfort food" books -- a book I pick off the shelf and cuddle up with once a year.
Aerin, the book's heroine, is a familiar character -- the outsider in a crowd, the girl who doesn't fit in. (Yeah, its something a pre-teen girl could relate to.) Despite being the king's daughter, she is struggling to find her place in the kingdom. Instead of following the usual path a princess (or sola, in Damar) should take, Aerin follows her own course and becomes the hero the kingdom didn't know they needed. I highly recommend this book for young adult readers, whether they are young or not.
http://archthinking.blogspot.com
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4: How I wish I'd read this when I was a young adult
I wasn't expecting much from The Hero and the Crown. I didn't really like Sunshine by the same author very much and I couldn't figure out why everyone has always loved Robin McKinley.
I get it now.
Aerin is the daughter of the King of Damaria, but her position has never been comfortable. For as long as she can remember, there have been many rumors floating around about her mother; that she bewitched the king, that she wasn't entirely human, that she was a witch. The situation isn't made any easier by the fact that Aerin's hereditary magic hasn't developed. She longs to be of use somehow, and with the discovery of kenet, a fire-proof salve, she discovers her calling when she begins to kill dragons. Her skill doesn't save her, and before the end she must learn a great deal about herself in order to save her country.
This book brought me straight back to my childhood, even though I'd never read it before. It reads like a fairy tale and reminded me a great deal of one of my favorites, Princess Nevermore by Dian Curtis Regan, although they have very little in common except for this fairy tale tone. McKinley's writing spoke to the little girl in me and I fell totally in love - with Aerin, with Tor, and perhaps especially with her horse, Talat, who may be my new favorite fantasy companion. (It's between Talat and Pantalaimon from His Dark Materials.) Aerin's journey was wonderfully done and I was very happy to allow myself to sink into this world. Perfect escapism.
There's very little else to say about a book I loved so much. This is an ideal book for young adults, in my opinion, and I'm not at all surprised that it won a Newbury Medal. I'm sorry I didn't discover it sooner!
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5: The Hero & The Crown - Excellent Book
I first read this book when I was about 12 years old and as a young girl was captivated. I could relate to Aerins feeling of being the black sheep and her rise from being the unwanted sol to the hero of the story was a fairy tale I could make my own. I loved the book so much that over the years I read it over and over and never let go of it from move after move, from my first marriage, to my first house, through my divorce and coming into my own, 4 children and finally meeting my own Luthe. Sometimes many years passed before I picked it up and read it again. I am now 33 and my copy is old and torn and ragged, the cover nearly torn away, but I wouldn't give it up for anything. I don't know what made me look online to see if I could find a new copy, for in my heart I thought mine was the only copy in the world - it is that valuable to me. But when I found it was there, I was delighted and had to instantly buy it and the sequel, which I was surprised to learn of. I have 2 daughters now, 14 & 13; and I have encouraged them each to read the book. I will not make them, for when they finally pick it up I want them to experience the same deep love of a story of a girl who becomes a woman and feel all of the sorrow, tribulation, triumph and
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